China’s Bytedance leases 118K sf in Culver City: sources

The tech company has a valuation of $75 billion

Bytedance founder Zhang Yiming, with C3
Bytedance founder Zhang Yiming, with C3

A Chinese startup with a $75 billion valuation just became the latest technology company to bet on Culver City.

Bytedance has closed on a deal to occupy nearly 119,000 square feet at C3 at Culver Pointe, The Real Deal has learned. The 282,951-square-foot, seven-story vertical creative office campus is located at 5800 Bristol Parkway.

Part social network, part news site, Bytedance owns several highly successful applications and sites like Jinri Toutiao, Tik Tok, Musical.ly, among others. The six-year-old company uses artificial intelligence to reach a mass audience.

Founded by Zhang Yiming, Bytedance recently became the world’s most valuable private tech company, surpassing ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies, according to Forbes. Japanese conglomerate Softbank, plus other investors, closed a $3 billion funding round late October, a deal which valued the Chinese firm at more than $75 billion.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Darren Eades, Scott Becket and Alyssa De Oca of JLL represented the tenant. Carl Muhlstein and Hayley Blockley, also at JLL, represented the landlord, IDS Real Estate Group.

With the Bytedance lease, the complex is now fully leased. Other tenants at the site include Henkel, Dentsu Aegis Network, Red Light Management, MMGY Global and Corgan Associates.

IDS, led by CEO David Mgrublian, developed the building in partnership with an affiliate of PNC Bank. The Gensler-designed campus has a private fitness center, an outdoor kitchen, bocce courts, a dog park and an amphitheater.

Culver City has become a tech hub in recent years, fueled in part by creative office conversions offering more attractive rates than neighboring Westside cities like Santa Monica that are in the heart of Silicon Beach. Amazon, for example, has leased Hackman Capital Partners’ entire Culver Steps, a 75,000-square-foot development at 9300 Culver Boulevard. That deal followed an announcement from Apple, which is leasing 128,000 square feet of office space in the city.